


Nothing Unsaid

by keybird



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bottom Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, But like he gets over it and then it’s all very Tender, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn Without Plot With Character Study?, Praise Kink, Top Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:22:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25463926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keybird/pseuds/keybird
Summary: It’s not that Geralt isn’t used to praise. He just isn’t used to how freely Jaskier gives it.Or: Geralt is emotionally constipated and stumbles into the fact that he has something of a praise kink. Jaskier is more than happy to assist. Both sort out their issues with far more sex and emotional maturity than is strictly in character for them.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 12
Kudos: 525
Collections: Abby's Witcher Collection, Geraskier Kink Bingo, Gorgeous Geralt and Jaskier ❤️, Random Fics





	Nothing Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, lovely readers! This is my first piece of fan fiction, well, ever, so I hope it turned out well!
> 
> I certainly didn’t expect the first thing I put on this site to be unabashed smut, but here we are. Tell me what you think!
> 
> (Written for the “praise kink” square of the Geraskier kink bingo)

Here’s the thing—it wasn’t as though Geralt was unused to praise. People thanked him more often than they spat at him, when he felled the griffin picking off their sheep, or the kikimora picking off their children. People were grateful, more often than not, even if they still stank of fear when they handed him his pay. He wasn’t lacking for gratitude, no matter what Jaskier said about it. And if sometimes the Alderman stiffed him on coin, or the townsfolk threw stones and called him Butcher? That was fine. That was just what he was owed, after the disaster he’d caused in Blaviken. It was a bitter sort of penance, but if it weren’t for Roach getting pelted alongside him, he might be tempted to stay and take the pain without complaint, because it was what he _deserved_.

What the witcher didn’t deserve was Jaskier.

Because Geralt _understood_ people who thanked him for taking the head of a ghoul that would’ve killed them. He _understood_ the occasional Alderman that dipped their head and said “witcher” like it was a title, and not a slur. But Geralt didn’t understand Jaskier, because the bard didn’t thank him for killing monsters or praise him for the gruesome but necessary role he played in human society. Or, well, he _did_ do that, true, but not _just_ that. The bard thanked him for _anything_.

“Oh, why, thank you, Geralt,” Jaskier said one morning after Geralt has finished saddling Roach with both their gear, “How very good of you.”

“Hmm. You were asleep.” Geralt wasn’t sure whether he intended that as an admonishment or a dismissal, or both, but it came out sounding like neither, and instead horribly _fond_. As if he liked the bard’s frequent tardiness in the morning. Which was just—untrue. Obviously. He was going to say something to that effect, about how Jaskier was always holding him back and being inconvenient, but then Jaskier smiled at him with all the warmth of the sun, and gripped his shoulder tightly for a moment before turning to shrug on the doublet he’d laid out the night before, and Geralt’s words got stuck in his throat as they so often did. He stared helplessly at the bard’s back until he flung the door open to leave, the words _how very good of you_ playing in his head more clearly than any earworm Jaskier had ever sung.

A week later, they were travelling through Temeria. The sun had begun to set before they were in sight of a village, so the two had fallen back on what was becoming a familiar routine, Jaskier building the fire while Geralt set off to hunt dinner. It wasn’t long before the witcher returned with a brace of rabbits, already skinned and dressed so that there would be less of the scent of blood where they made camp. Jaskier looks up as Geralt enters the clearing, fingers stilling on the lute strings, cornflower eyes going bright at the promise of food. “Mm, good job, witcher. Tonight, we eat like kings!” The bard flourishes a hand in the air, and Geralt knows he’s exaggerating, is used to the theatrics by now, but—he snaps. Because he doesn’t understand how the bard can hand out praise so easily, especially not for something so little, especially not to _something like him_ , and every time it makes the Witcher’s heart clench and his face heat, and he thinks he might love the feeling, but he hates that he doesn’t understand it.

So he snaps. A short, frustrated growl of _”Jaskier,”_ is all he can bite out before he runs out of words to explain himself, and his skin hums with agitation as he growls and tries to put his feelings to thoughts and his thoughts to words. When he glares over the fire at Jaskier, the bard looks shocked and a little angry. Something in Geralt thrills at that anger, because Jaskier being angry at him is something he could understand. But he can’t understand the raw tenderness that spills over Jaskier’s features next, and the witcher realizes that that _scares_ him.

“Oh, Geralt,” the bard mutters, almost to himself. “You can’t ever let yourself have anything nice, can you?”

Then Jaskier is sitting beside him, and prying the rabbits from his numb, clenched fists and placing them on a spit over the fire, soothing a hand over the Witcher’s hair as he fumes and stares into the flames. Geralt doesn’t know why he allows it. Doesn’t know why he leans into the touch, instead of snarling and pushing the bard away. Doesn’t know how the bard sees through him so easily, because even the few years they’ve spent travelling together shouldn’t be enough for him to have gotten this good at it.

Jaskier just presses closer, humming under his breath next to Geralt until the witcher’s shoulders relax and his frown softens. He can feel Jaskier’s voice vibrate against his ribs, like this. It’s... soothing. “Now. Are you going to tell me what all that grumbling was about?”

Geralt huffs, still unable to look Jaskier in the eyes. So he keeps staring into the fire, instead. “You’re always... saying things. Thanking me. Like I’ve done something good. When I haven’t done anything at all. It isn’t...” he clenches his teeth, thinks about it. Thinks about all of the ways that Jaskier is _wrong_ , for a human, how he doesn’t follow the rules of any human he’s ever met and it terrifies him. “It isn’t right.”

“Right, wrong. What does it all mean, anyway?” Jaskier says, in that light, singsong voice he uses whenever he is about to pontificate on the philosophical. When he gets like this, Geralt swears he can see what he must have been like at Oxenfurt, cocksure and painfully young, even more so then than he still is now. Geralt isn’t in the mood to listen to the bard dither about the meaning of life, though, not tonight. (Not ever, he wants to insist, but he stopped lying to himself about that the second time he caught himself smiling as Jaskier argued with himself on some finer point of theory. It’s just that he forgets, sometimes, that his foppish bard has more going on in his head than song lyrics and a disturbing inclination to run towards danger rather than away. Most of what he says makes not a lick of sense to Geralt, and what he does understand never seems terribly important, but it’s a reminder that Jaskier is damn smart, for all the foolish things he does, like following a witcher across the continent.)

“Jaskier,” the witcher says, with much less vitriol this time. “Get to the point.”

“My point, Geralt, is that there’s no rulebook that says I can’t appreciate you. No god will strike me down for thanking you for something less than lifesaving. Not everything you do has to be the best thing you’ve ever done for it to be _worth_ something.” The bard’s voice breaks a little, at that. Geralt gets the sense that what the bard is saying to him is something the bard has had to tell himself, over and over, in the quiet of his own mind. Geralt can’t imagine why. The bard doesn’t _have_ to be anything, is the thing. He wasn’t _built_ to sing, or to tend Geralt’s wounds, or to argue about philosophy and literature and all of the high-minded stuff that Geralt maybe would have cared about, in another life. The bard is human, and he wasn’t made to be all of the things he is, and yet chooses to embody them anyway. _That_ is worthy of praise. But you don’t praise a sword for fulfilling its function. You don’t praise a witcher, at least not more than as an acknowledgement of a service rendered, the simple gratitude of an owner to a tool for not breaking beneath the strain when he needed it most.

Geralt wants to say that, but he can’t. Those words stick in his throat like all the rest, like burrs where Jaskier’s words are like nectar, spilling sweetly from the bard’s lips in a never-ending stream. Geralt knows he’ll never beat the bard in a battle of words, but he doesn’t want to, at least not about this. He wishes he could believe Jaskier, when Jaskier looks at him like he’s _worth_ something. He stares into Jaskier’s eyes and tries to let himself believe it. And then Jaskier is tugging at the fastenings of his shirt, and Geralt doesn’t know how they got here but it feels right, like everything was always leading here. The bard’s lips are soft against his own, lute-calloused fingers gentle as they push the shirt of rom his shoulders and guide his own hands to help the bard remove his doublet. It’s the permission to touch that Geralt needed but would never have admitted to needing, and the witcher makes short work of the bard’s clothes so that he can run his hands across the planes of Jaskier’s furred chest, struck with wonder at the ease with which the bard allows him this. Even whores tended to slap his hands away if he lingered too long, making playful remarks about needing his cock, not his hands. Everyone knew a witcher’s hands were meant for violence. No one wanted to test his ability to turn them to softness. Jaskier, as always, is an exception to the rule.

The bard doesn’t speak again until they are both naked in the firelight, their bedrolls pushed together for more space. There is heat and amusement mixing in his bright blue eyes as he leans forward and captures Geralt’s chin in his hand. “Since you don’t like when I praise you for nothing,” Jaskier says, “I’ll only do it if you’re good for me. Will you be good for me, Geralt?”

Geralt moans so fervently in response that he surprises himself. He’d never imagined his blood would run so hot at hearing something so innocuous, but like always, the bard knew just what to say to provoke a response from him, played his witcher as surely as he did his lute.

“I need an answer, Geralt.” Jaskier’s hands trailed from his chin down his throat, and the witcher swallowed against the feeling of the bard’s nails as they traced his jugular. Gods, he wanted Jaskier so badly he couldn’t _think_ , wanted nothing more than to be good for him, like he’d said. Wanted the bard to croon in his ear just how good he was while the bard fucked into him—

“ _Yes_. Yes, Jaskier, please. Want to be good for you.”

“Oh, _good_ witcher,” Jaskier purred, “using his words for me. That deserves a reward, I think.”

Geralt squeezed his eyes shut, biting back a whine. He hadn’t done anything, again. He didn’t deserve—but that wasn’t for him to decide. Jaskier got to decide that, and Jaskier was swirling oil-slicked fingers around the rim of his hole, now, making it difficult to think about anything other than pleasure and the need to please. And Jaskier didn’t lie to him, so when he said these sweet things, why should they be lies? Surely not all truths had to be bitter.

“That’s it,” hushed Jaskier, slipping the first finger into Geralt’s hole with small, circular motions. “Just lay back and take it. How long has it been since someone took care of you, hmm?”

“Jask—“ he reached out, uncertain. What was the bard getting out of this? Jaskier shouldn’t have to do all the work. Geralt was lucky Jaskier wanted to sleep with him, and the bard wouldn’t want to do it again if he was a bad bed partner. Might not want to do it again, anyway, once the novelty had passed, but either way Geralt wanted to make this good for him. He had wanted to please the bard, but it felt more like Jaskier was pleasing him.

“Shh, Geralt. I want you just like this. Do—do you want it like this?” The bard’s voice abruptly lost its sultry tone, and his expression was a bit pinched as he brushed a lock of hair from Geralt’s forehead. “I don’t want to push you, Geralt. If this isn’t what—“

“I want this,” said Geralt, cutting off the spiral of self doubt Jaskier had been tipping towards. “Want you. I just... you’re doing all the work. Doesn’t feel fair.”

“Oh,” said Jaskier, with a fond little smirk, “If _that’s_ all... I can assure you I’m taking my pleasure from this just as much as you are. But if you want to help, I suppose I’ll come up with something...”

If Geralt could blush, his cheeks would be flaming at the way Jaskier looked at him. Instead, he squirmed on the finger still pressed into his ass, and struggled to look Jaskier in the eye. The bard’s expression was rapturous, predatory. It held Geralt like a falcon held a mouse between its talons. Geralt had never been harder in his life.

Then Jaskier pulled his finger away, and looked at him appraisingly while the witcher clenched around nothingness. Geralt’s moan was almost a sob. “Oh, I know— knees to your chest, dear. Now, hold yourself spread for me. _Good_ , just like that.” Geralt burned as he obeyed, ever part of him aflame with a tantalizing mix of shame and willing vulnerability. He realized he was shaking slightly only when Jaskier started running a hand down his side, as if to soothe him the way he might soothe a startled animal. The witcher keened, and let his legs fall open wider. “Good, Geralt. So good for me.” Jaskier’s fingers were back, coated liberally in oil as the bard coaxed him open for the second time. The first finger slid in easily, and a second met little resistance not long after. Geralt was panting, and already he felt split open, trembling around the slender digits. Then Jaskier crooked his fingers, expertly pressing against the most sensitive part of him, and Geralt stifled a cry.

“Now, none of that,” said Jaskier, and Geralt wilted under his reproach. The bard must have noticed, because he gave the back of the Witcher’s neck a reassuring squeeze with the hand that wasn’t currently half inside of him. “It’s alright, darling,” he cooed. “I want to hear you. You’ll be good and let me hear you, won’t you?”

Geralt nodded, shakily. Jaskier smiled. “Good! Good. Now, just one more finger, hmm?” Jaskier slipped in a third digit, scissoring his fingers to stretch him wider, and Geralt moaned and went boneless in the bard’s grasp, only his arms still tense with the strain of holding himself open and on display for the bard. There’s a gentle kiss to his forehead, and then Geralt is making a soft noise of protest as the bard slips his fingers free, only for Jaskier to hush him as he slicks up his cock and lines it into place. Geralt lets himself moan, long and low, as Jaskier pushes into him in short little thrusts. He’s taken a man before, but it’s been a long time since he has, and the stretch of the bard’s cock is a pleasant burn as he struggles to push himself in to the hilt. Geralt wraps his legs around Jaskier’s hips and clutches at his shoulders, tucking his nose into the bard’s neck as he ever-so-carefully pulls Geralt’s hips flush with his own. Beneath the heavy scent of lust, Jaskier’s scent spikes with triumph as he bottoms out inside him.

Chest to chest like this, Geralt can see the flush high on Jaskier’s cheeks, the way his sweat-slick skin shines as he catches his breath. Jaskier stares at him with something approaching reverence, and Geralt tries to avoid his gaze only for the bard to attack his mouth with a slew of fierce kisses, rocking into the witcher as he does so in a way that makes Geralt’s toes curl. Geralt is moaning in between ragged breaths, then, and Jaskier is muttering filthy praises in his ears as he picks up the tempo of his thrusts, telling him how good he feels around his cock, how good he is to let Jaskier take him, how good, how good, how good.

When Jaskier’s hand wraps around his cock, he shatters, trembling headlong into orgasm in the arms of his bard. When the world comes back into focus, Jaskier is coming inside him, pulsing and hot, and he luxuriates in the almost-too-much feeling of it. The bard pulls out slowly, and geralt can’t help but whine at the empty feeling, pressing up against Jaskier and holding tightly to him for fear of drifting away. Jaskier breaks from his hold and Geralt lets him, feeling hollow, but in a moment the bard is back, cleaning the come from their skin and pulling a blanket over them both. Now Jaskier is the one holding him tightly, still praising him softly, playing with Geralt’s hair and feeding him bites of the rabbit he must have pulled from the fire when he got up to fetch a rag to clean them both with. Geralt melts into the care, and Jaskier praises him all the more for it, a feedback loop as the witcher accepts the bard’s praise, and the bard praises him for accepting it.

Later, as they lay curled together in their shared bedroll, ankles tangled and fingers enlaced, words still stick in Geralt’s throat. But these words are important, so he forces them out anyway. “Jaskier,” he begins.

“Yes, my witcher?”

“I’m—thank you. That was... good.”

Jaskier laughs, not unkindly. “I should hope it was better than good!” His voice softens. “But I know what you mean.”

Geralt hums as Jaskier drags a hand through his hair again. “I... those things you say about me. About how—about how I’m good. I feel those things about you too. I’m not as good at saying them.”

Jaskier’s smile is small and fond, again. Sometimes Geralt thinks that Jaskier’s smiles are smaller the happier he is. The less performative he has to be in his happiness. “I think you’ve said it just fine,” says the bard, “which is a miracle, truly—“

“Jaskier. Shut up.”

And Jaskier says, “Gladly,” because for once, there is nothing unsaid between them, and they fall asleep secure in each other’s arms.


End file.
